my nascar year: never give up? never give up

Welcome to The Fast and the Fabulous! This was a blog based on one woman's thoughts, opinions and experiences involving NASCAR and IndyCar. As of February 20, 2015 this blog is no longer active. Find out why & browse the archives by clicking here.

The end of the NASCAR year is quickly approaching. With only 5 races left in the Sprint Cup Series season I figured this was the right time to assess where I am with the “My NASCAR Year 2012″ fundraiser. We’ve stalled at $5,419 which, needless to say, isn’t equal to my goal of $125,000. I am forever grateful to everyone who contributed!

So that means, as of now, I won’t be going to all of the Cup races next year. While I am very disappointed, I’m not giving up.

When I wrote my post about MNY, I thought at the time that if I didn’t reach the goal I would stop writing this blog. I’ve done this for 6 years now and, while it has grown in content and in traffic, I couldn’t help but wonder what the point of all of this was and if I should continue it. It does take a lot of time, focus and money to keep going. For as much money I’ve pumped into this blog I’ve put in as much, if not more, time just THINKING about all of the ways I can make this site a must-read destination for female racing fans. It’s kind of exhausting.

Let’s not leave out the doubt. The doubt in myself, the doubt in if this is really what I should be doing, blah, blah, blah. To be blunt, it’s fucking annoying. But when I get to the track and I’m in the thick of it it’s the greatest thing ever. And when I get home and I write about it all it’s bliss.

So I can’t stop now. Even though I’ve found my bliss I still need some help paying for it. That’s the hard part, the part that people don’t write books about. The struggle to get other people to see that what you do matters and is worth their time & money & support. This isn’t meant to be a complaint. No one owes me anything. It’s just frustrating.

But the truth of the matter is that if you aren’t selling a product or service online, when all you’ve got is content, you’re way of making money is through advertising. So I need sponsors to grow.

So here’s what I’m doing now. I’m going to use the money that I’ve collected to date to use for travel expenses to Las Vegas for this year’s NASCAR Champion’s Week and for races next year. Thank you AGAIN to everyone that contributed. You’re super-amazing-awesome!

Beyond that I’m living life without expectations and I’m leaving a lot of things up to fate. Of course I’ll continue to make connections to move things along — doing everything in my power to make something happen — but I’m also leaving things up to you, too.

I said in a previous post that I should create some sort of quick Tweet button that you can press to let certain brands know that they should work with me. So I’ve made it happen. When you click the button in the sidebar at right or down below, you can send a tweet to a bunch of different brands to let them know you dig The Fast and the Fabulous and you want to see it grow. The goal is to create buzz! Let’s do this!

You can, of course, change the text or the brands that I’ve preloaded in the Tweet, but just make sure to keep it nice & respectful. But feel free to tweet as much as you like and get others to retweet. Gotta get people’s attention somehow.

As always YOUR support & encouragement means the most to me. Thank you for reading!

1 Comment

Valli, my heart, your work on this blog is a wonderful. Because of this you have made me a fan of NASCAR. I get it! Because of you I understand it. More import, is that I understand the people in NASCAR…the drivers, their wives, children and press people. As you know my favorite blogs are when you attend races and write about your experiences (hunting for Sprinkle cupcakes-my fav!)it brings the speed track to me. I have seen and felt your frustration about not being able to attend more races and if I had $250k I would sponsor you. I am so proud that you have not given up and that despite all of the challenges you keep coming up with ideas. Your very proud Mother